


right here

by TuppenceBee



Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Sharing Clothes, references to infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 05:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21506008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuppenceBee/pseuds/TuppenceBee
Summary: Jimmy thought he knew what he wanted but then Duncan throws a spanner into the works.‘You don’t need her,’ Duncan repeats, grip on Jimmy’s wrist slackening. His eyes flutter; he’ll be nodding off any moment. Jimmy straightens up, turns to leave but then Duncan murmurs, ‘Not when m’right here,’ and Jimmy freezes.
Relationships: Duncan Hunter/Jimmy Perez, Minor or Background Relationship(s), background Alice Brooks/Jimmy Perez
Comments: 28
Kudos: 111





	right here

**Author's Note:**

> Dipping my toe into something new! The blanket scene in the 4th ep of the last season got me right in the feels and then the plot bunny attacked! XD
> 
> Self-beta’d and not, er, Scot-picked (I don’t know the right term) so please feel free to point out any glaring errors!

Jimmy sighs as he looks down at Duncan passed out on the couch. He picks up the blanket with a shake of his head and spreads it over him. As he’s smoothing the corner over the jut of an elegant shoulder, a hand grabs his wrist.

Duncan is looking up at him, gaze a little unfocussed, but awake. Mostly. ‘You don’t need Alice,’ he says.

Jimmy swallows thickly. ‘You’re drunk.’

‘Aye,’ Duncan says, ‘but m’not stupid.’

‘We’re not talking about this.’ Jimmy tugs on his wrist but Duncan chases it. ‘Go to sleep.’

‘You don’t need her,’ Duncan repeats, grip on Jimmy’s wrist slackening. His eyes flutter; he’ll be nodding off any moment. Jimmy straightens up, turns to leave but then Duncan murmurs, ‘Not when m’right here,’ and Jimmy freezes.

‘What?’ Jimmy asks but Duncan is gently snoring, in the deep sleep of the well and truly pissed. He shakes his head again and turns off the light.

Sleep doesn’t come as easily for Jimmy when he goes to bed. He lies awake most of the night, Duncan’s words ricocheting in his skull.

Not when I’m right here.

When I’m right here.

I’m right here.

_I’m right here._

What does that mean?

If it hadn’t been confusing enough with Alice, now there is this. But Jimmy doesn’t know what this is. Alice, he knows, mostly…but this.

He rolls over and a little voice in the back of his mind whispers, Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

He rolls onto his back. The voice is wrong. He and Duncan—

There is no he and Duncan.

Duncan was drunk, was probably making some sort of daft joke. Something that, were he sober, would have been off-colour but made more sense. Something like how he and Jimmy are practically married, so what does he need another man’s wife for? A warning, concern, disguised as a quip.

That’s all.

Nothing more.

It can’t be anything more.

Jimmy doesn’t want it to be anything more.

_Liar._

—

‘Last night,’ Jimmy starts, over breakfast the next morning, curses himself for bringing it up.

‘Och, I was absolutely trollied, man,’ Duncan says, nursing a cup of tea. He looks up, eyes red-rimmed but clear in the morning light. At Jimmy’s silence he adds, ‘Don’t tell me I did something embarrassing. You know not to take anything I say or do when I’m drunk, seriously.’

Jimmy nods, finding his toast very interesting. ‘I know,’ he says, a lump forming, suddenly, inexplicably, in his throat, ‘I know.’

—

‘We need to talk.’ It’s Alice, on the phone, voice like shattered glass.

‘Aye, we do.’

They meet for lunch; it’s awkward and tense and the sense of rightness Jimmy had felt when he and Alice kissed has made way for a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Maybe it wasn’t rightness. Maybe it was the thrill of the moment.

‘This is a bad idea,’ Jimmy says.

‘Because I’m married?’

‘Aye.’ Jimmy sighs. ‘But it’s not just that.’

‘Don’t tell me you have someone else.’ It’s said almost like a joke.

The corner of Jimmy’s mouth ticks up and he ducks his gaze.

‘ _Do_ you have someone else?’

Jimmy hesitates.

‘Right,’ Alice says.

Later, sitting at the table alone, head in his hands, Jimmy feels adrift. He’d thought he’d known what he wanted. He was starting to become sure of it. But now…the certainty recedes like waves drawing back from shore.

—

The brush of a hand over the dinner table and Jimmy realises how often he and Duncan touch. How often _he_ touches Duncan.

He’s a tactile person and that’s what he’d always chalked it up to. But these touches…they feel different. It isn’t a feeling that’s solely familial or fraternal or platonic or any of the other things he’d told himself it was.

These touches light a spark that threatens to consume, but at the same time feels like the gentle warmth of an open fire.

Jimmy knows this feeling, but he doesn’t want to put a name to it. Not with Duncan. Not now.

Not yet.

—

The next time Alice calls, Jimmy doesn’t answer.

—

‘I think it’s best if we end this,’ Jimmy says.

Alice blinks. ‘It’s barely even started, Jimmy.’

‘I know, I know,’ Jimmy says, ‘but I don’t know what I want. It’s not fair on you—‘

‘You really are determined to be alone, aren’t you,’ Alice says and leaves.

Jimmy watches her walk away.

—

‘Are you in, tonight?’ Jimmy calls out, walking into the living room. ‘I thought about making—’

He stops short, because Duncan is sitting on the couch, wearing— ‘Is that my jumper?’

Duncan looks down at himself. His eyebrows raise as though he’s surprised, himself, to see what he’s wearing. ‘I was cold and grabbed the first thing I found.’ He looks up with a shrug. ‘D’you need it back, right now?’

It’s bound to happen, living together, clothes getting mixed up—though their clothes are _nothing alike_ —but the sight of Duncan wearing his jumper sparks something in Jimmy. Some long dormant possessiveness he didn’t know he had within him. Not towards Duncan, anyway.

‘Jimmy?’

‘No. Keep it on,’ Jimmy says, thickly, ‘it suits you.’

Duncan shrugs again. ‘If you say so,’ he says and goes back to his pile of paperwork, seemingly unaffected.

But Jimmy can’t stop thinking about Duncan in his jumper.

In _his_ jumper.

_His his his._

—

‘It’s over,’ Jimmy says across the dining table.

Duncan raises his eyebrows. Inquiring.

‘Me and Alice.’ Jimmy pokes at his pasta with his fork. ‘It wasn’t…a good idea.’

‘I could’ve told you that,’ Duncan says. His smile is more sympathetic than smug, though.

‘You did.’

Duncan gives a little frown. ‘Did I?’

‘That night, after you saw us at the pub,’ Jimmy says. Before Duncan can say anything else, Jimmy adds, ‘And you should know…you’re not alone.’

‘What, exactly, did I say?’ Duncan asks with a wince.

Jimmy reminds him of his words. _There's no profit in womanising, Jimmy, you just end up on your own with everybody hating you_. The flush of embarrassment on Duncan’s cheeks would be satisfying if Jimmy weren’t on the edge of a blush, himself.

‘Well, I may have been pissed, but I was right.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ Jimmy says, stabbing his fork into a piece of pasta, ‘and you’re not alone.’

Duncan stares at him with clear eyes that know too much and says, ‘Neither are you.’

—

It happens—finally, inevitably—in the kitchen, of all places. They’re shuffling around each other, though there’s more than enough room for them both to fit comfortably. Always in each other’s orbits.

Duncan’s elbow digs into Jimmy’s side and that’s the last straw.

Jimmy grabs Duncan’s elbow, pulls him close at the same time as he’s crowding him back against the sink. Without a second thought he kisses him.

And Duncan kisses back. Hands fisted in Jimmy’s jumper, mouth wet and warm and open.

It’s good. Too good.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jimmy says, pulling back.

Duncan still has his hands in Jimmy’s jumper, and his mouth is still opened—lips shining and pink—and he should look ridiculous but he looks beautiful. ‘What?’

Jimmy gently pries Duncan’s fingers off of him. ‘I shouldn’t have—‘

‘Jimmy, wait.’

Jimmy walks away.

—

They don’t talk to each other for a week.

(The truth of it: Jimmy avoids Duncan for a week, as best he can when they live together.)

It’s not the worst week of Jimmy’s life, not by a long stretch, but it is bloody excruciating all the same.

—

Duncan is waiting outside when Jimmy gets back from work. Waves crash against the sea wall, wind blusters, briny and bitter.

‘You forget your keys or something?’ Jimmy says as he shoulders past Duncan to get to the door.

‘So, you’re speaking to me?’ Duncan huffs. ‘No, I’ve my keys. But I figured it would be harder for you to avoid me if I was standing right in the doorway.’

Jimmy doesn’t try to deny that he’s been avoiding Duncan. But he goes inside, silently, knowing Duncan will follow. He stops in the kitchen, leaning back on the counter. ‘You’re angry.’

‘Aye.’

‘I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not angry that you kissed me, Jimmy.’

Jimmy looks up then. Duncan looks frustrated and amused, by equal measure. ‘Then what?’ Jimmy asks.

‘You walked away before I had a chance!’

‘For what?’

‘For this,’ Duncan says, and this time it’s him crowding Jimmy back up against the counter. This time it’s him kissing Jimmy and Jimmy kissing back.

God, but it feels right. Feels like the last clue sliding into place in an investigation. But, still, Jimmy pulls back, hands on Duncan’s chest. ‘This is a bad idea.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Then why—’ Jimmy doesn’t know how to finish that, so he only repeats, ‘Then _why_?’

‘Because we’re a better idea than you and Alice,’ Duncan says, smirking in that way he does. His gaze softens. ‘Because maybe we’re a bad idea, but we make sense.’

Jimmy doesn’t question that because he knows that they do. It’s a feeling in his gut, warm and certain. ‘Aye, we do.’

‘Then why did you walk away?’

Jimmy shakes his head. Tears prick at his eyes, tighten his throat. ‘What if this doesn’t work? What about Cass—‘

‘She’s a big girl. She’ll be all right.’

Jimmy lets out a long, low breath. ‘What if you find something better?’

A sharp intake of breath at that but Duncan only nods and says, ‘That’s fair. With my track record…’ He shakes his head. ‘There’s nothing better, Jimmy.’

Jimmy makes a disbelieving sound.

‘Trust me. I’m right here,’ Duncan says, cupping Jimmy’s face with his hand. Jimmy leans into the press of his palm, automatic. Duncan brushes his thumb over Jimmy’s face. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m _right here_.’

‘I know.’ And Jimmy does, that same warm feeling in his stomach. Duncan slides his palm to the back of his neck and rests their foreheads together. Jimmy breathes in, long and deep, and says, ‘I know.’

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Writing a new ship is always daunting and weird but this was also fun! :)
> 
> Also, I’ve been writing about American teenage (late teens) boys almost exclusively for the past two years, so this was an interesting jump! Haha


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